Got a smartwatch? Here is how to control your smart lighting from your wrist

Smartwatches are becoming more popular and whether you like them or not, they are now becoming devices that do a lot more than just track your activity and deliver notifications from your smartphone.

You can also control your lighting from your smartwatch, depending on which system you have. Whether or not this is necessary is another story, but it can be done nonetheless.

We have rounded up some of the available lighting control apps for Android Wear, Apple Watch and Pebble that mean you can dim those lights or create a romantic scene in your living room without having to move more than your wrist and finger.

Apple Watch

Lutron Home Control+

Lutron Home Control+ allows you to control your lights, shades and temperature using your smartphone or Apple Watch.

You'll be able to select certain preset scenes on your Apple Watch, such as Movie or Goodnight, or you can adjust individual lights and shades by clicking on them and moving the slider. You can also increase or decrease the temperature, as well as quickly see what the temperature is in your home.

Philips Hue

Philips Hue was one of the first companies to bring smart lighting to homes and while it isn't the cheapest on the market, it has all sorts of exciting functions that make it much more fun than your standard light bulb.

With the Philips Hue Apple Watch app, you can select various predefined scenes, such as Relax, Deep Sea, or Energise, as well as turn all or some of your lights off.

Elgato Avea

Elgato is another company that offers smart lighting with its Avea light bulb, transforming your home like Hue with a range of light moods.

Using your Apple Watch and the Elgato Avea app, you will be able to select one a number of scenes including Cherry Blossom, Cozy Flame and Fairy Woods. You'll also be able to set your Avea bulbs to wake you up, adjust their settings or turn them off all together.

Android Wear

Hue Control

The Hue Control app for Android Wear is what you'll need if you want to control your Philips Hue smart lights from your wrist.

You'll be able to dim your lights or pick a different colour from your watch screen, as well as view the current colours of your lights. This app will also enable you to turn all off your lights, or your grouped lights on or off.

LIFX

LIFX smart bulbs are similar to Hue in that you can select from millions of colours and scenes. They can be controlled remotely as you would expect from a smart bulb, but LIFX also works with the Nest Learning Thermostat.

Android Wear support means you can now control your LIFX lights from your watch. Turn them on or off, select the colour you want or select one of the preset light themes.

IFTTT

IFTTT is a service that works on the principle statement of "If This Then That", using what it calls Channels and Recipes to make something automatically happen after something else has.

It isn't a specific Android Wear app, but IFTTT does have Android Wear as a Channel which means you can create recipes using your lighting system and your watch. For example, you could create a recipe that turns your Hue lights off when you push a specific button on your smartwatch.

Pebble

Huebble

As you might expect from its excellent name, Huebble is the app that allows you to control your Philips Hue lighting from your Pebble smartwatch.

You can do all sorts from this app from turning all your lights off or changing the bulb colour to one of Pebble's options, to setting your brightness percentage or selecting one of the preset scenes like Relax or Concentrate.

WinkControl

The WinkControl app for Pebble allows you to control your Wink lights and shortcuts from your Pebble smartwatch.

You'll be able to select shortcuts such as Movie Time or Bed Time, as well as turn your lights on and off and adjust the brightness.

WeMote

Another app, another great name. The WeMote app is a remote app that allows you to flip your WeMo switches from your wrist.

Belkin's WeMo devices allow you to turn standard products into smart ones, such as an average desktop lamp. This app will allow you to control all your WeMo devices and see their statuses, but it requires the Ouimeaux REST API running on a computer to work.